Vengeance of the dead, what the hell

[Kuritza]

Just had my preneder God killed with vengeance of the dead. Over 400 undead in an 'assassination'-type combat couldnt even break through his mirror image, yet he died because of turns limit.
Yes, they cannot retreat, they fight till the end even after the 'special monsters are routed' message and defender gets wiped automatically. Even though he didnt lose a single HP, he had no fatique etc.
Tell me its 'working as intended', for God's sake.

[Xietor]

I agree that if turn limit is reached, should not result in death. Or cap the number of troops at 100.

[lch]

Capping the number of units would not only be unthematic (hey, this guy killed thousands, but only a hundred of them bothered to show up), it would make the spell totally useless, too.

[Sombre]

The way it currently works is pretty cheap though, when it kills a SC via turn limit.

[lch]

It requires a MR check to kick off in the first place, and you're only up against undead chaff. So in case your commander fails to beat both, I wouldn't call him a SC anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Kuritza]

Even with MR 20+ you are going to fail the check eventually, spell costs just 3 astral gems. As for 'kill them all', he WOULD kill them all were it not the turn limit. Did you even bother reading the post? He killed about half of them without even being scratched, he WAS an SC. But because of the turns limit, he was auto-killed. Can I say 'it calls for a fix'?

[tibbs]

I don't see a problem with the spell. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

[Jazzepi]

Well, I think the turn limit is there as a catch all. In programming terms, you can't have a situation that doesn't eventually resolve itself. Creating an infinite loop in combat where two SCs stand there and stare at each other forever is a bad idea.

Perhaps the ceiling for auto-routing should be raised, or perhaps your SC should get better at killing undead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Jazzepi

[thejeff]

Doesn't the attacker auto-rout first?

Shouldn't the undead, or at least the undead's leader retreat when they rout? Or does this special attack not have a leader?

If so, maybe that's the solution.

[Jazzepi]

thejeff said:
Doesn't the attacker auto-rout first?

Shouldn't the undead, or at least the undead's leader retreat when they rout? Or does this special attack not have a leader?

If so, maybe that's the solution.



>>Yes, they cannot retreat, they fight till the end even >>after the 'special monsters are routed' message and >>defender gets wiped automatically. Even though he didnt >>lose a single HP, he had no fatique etc.

Sometimes units stay on the table even after their side has routed. I've seen this multiple times in big fights even with units that are not undead/beserked. Apparently these undead never retreat.

Actually, I think undead with morale 50 never retreat, even when their side is fleeing. What happens is that the undead leaders leave, the units continue to fight, and then they suffer whatever the enormous penalty is for not having magical leadership in the battle and start to dissolve. It sounds like that these special attackers have no leader to flee, so instead of that leader running off and the units dissolving, they just stay and wail on the SC even though they've routed.

It seems like to me the fix would be to give the special attack a leader. Unless I'm completely off base here.

Jazzepi

[Baalz]

Well, yeah, as others have pointed out you need to fail a MR check for it to take effect, so would you prefer to be mind hunted? MR fail = insta death. Ah, but you can counter that by having an astral mage present...well, you can counter Vengence of the Dead with effective chaff killer stuff like a strong fire shield, trampling, the ageis... or script returning, or having access to cleansing water. There's lots of times where MR fail = you're screwed, and VotD is only terribly effective in a handful of situations.

[lch]

Kuritza said:
As for 'kill them all', he WOULD kill them all were it not the turn limit. Did you even bother reading the post?


Yep, I certainly did. Failure to kill a hundred undead before the turn limit hits you makes it sound an awful lot like your commander either does not have enough reinvigoration to never pass out from fatigue or didn't use area attacks like Fire Brand, and didn't employ what SCs usually do: passive effects like a fire shield, the aegis, or other weapons of mass destruction. And as Baalz repeated again, there are far worse things to happen after a failed MR check. Mind Hunts are only 2 astral pearls per cast, BTW.

[llamabeast]

It does sound to me though like it should be the undead who die, and not the victim if the turn limit is reached.

[Kuritza]

1) Mind comparing the research levels needed for a mind hunt + soul slay and vengeance of the dead?
2) Mind hunt is easy to counter.
3) Caelum has no way of crafting a fire brand or fire shield, and it was FAAAAR to early for Aegis. My ally was just about to make a fire brand for me ofc, next turn, but alas.
4) For aoe, my pretender had a frost brand, but of course, these undead are immune. Still, he was good enough to slay anything that went his way. My point is: its rediculous that unkillable otherwise SC dies to a lvl4 spell without a chance to defend himself just because special mobs in an assassination-type combat dont have a commander (or he is just as mindless) so routing doesnt affect them.
5)
Failure to kill a hundred undead

Not hundred. Over four hundred.


As for 'its a resistance check' - he resisted it several times in a row, but eventually any repeatable roll WILL be failed. Even despite friendly dominion, rainbow armor and an amulet of antimagic, there's nothing you can do about it.

[Tuidjy]

It's a powerful spell, that's fine. But when the turn limit expires, the
target should wake up, i.e. win. I consider this a bug. And I am scared.
My pretender in one of my games has 1073 kills. She may or may not be able
to kill them in 75 rounds. In the same game, I have a wraith lord with 247
kills. He is set up for SC hunting, and I know he cannot kill 247 targets
in 75 rounds. His MR is nothing to write home about, either.

Just make it so that they rout or dissolve at the end of the turn limit.
It's both fair and thematic.

[Gandalf Parker]

Purely on an RPG thematic argument (translation: getting Kristoffer to bug Johan about this)...
it seems to me that if someone is attacked, and outlasts the combat, that should be considered to be a win. If you want a thematic result to the fact that the combat ran into overtime with attackers still on the field, then toss them into a general combat as if they were attacking the province.

[Yucky]

Kuritza said:
My point is: its rediculous that unkillable otherwise SC dies to a lvl4 spell



An "unkillable SC" is ridiculous, everything should have a counter.

[Baalz]

Yeah, the thing is there is no such thing as a un-killable SC, that's the way the game is designed. Your unkillable SC could obviously fail a MR for a soul slay, or disintegrate, or be hit by another SC, or simply be banished to inferno. VotD is designed to be a SC stopper, but even still is only that effective (referring to a time limit death) if you have:
An astral + death mage
A guy who has killed hundreds of people
Who also has a low enough MR to be vulnerable (just try to cast it at an in-dominion god with a lead shield, starshine cap, and amulet of antimagic)
Who also doesn't have aoe damage that hurts undead.
Who isn't expecting it (because you've been casting it for a couple turns), and scripted something more appropriate to dealing with hoards of undead. (returning, wrathful skies, etc.)

Plus, it always targets the biggest kill count in a province, so if you start getting hit by it you only need to set up one "shield" guy, and you know who it should be.

Sure, Mind Hunt is counterable...if you have astral mages. In some situations though mind hunt can be completely devastating. Many spells are devastating if used in the right situation.

[lch]

Tuidjy said:
In the same game, I have a wraith lord with 247 kills.


He is not susceptible to Vengeance of the Dead since undeads never sleep. One of the exceptions to it, just like Mind Hunts have theirs. And since Vengeance of the Dead takes two different magic paths to cast, your enemy needs Spectres or would have to be either Ermor or Agartha, or something. And I like that they have a thematic SC-counter. Why should you have an unbeatable unit that they can't counter? In any case, important commanders should carry MR-boosting items like the amulet of antimagic before anything else.

You can even prevent your thugged out unit to get too many kills. I'm not sure about Fire Shields, but somewhat certain that the Snake Bladder Stick doesn't raise your bodycount.

[Kuritza]

1) Please do read the post and comments. His mr was high, I equipped him for it, but you are 100% likely to fail one roll eventually.
2) He was unkillable for this stupid chaff. Otherwise, he was just a very strong combatant. You can still kill him with thugs if you catch him (eye of the void to take care of his main protection, mirror image), paralyze him and swarm with F9W9 shadow vestals (its MA ermor for a reason) - same lvl4 thaumaturgy research btw, shoot him with massed nether bolts etc.
3) For a soul slay to work on him, he should end up on the same battlefield with a soulslaying mage. I used my god to finish off small parties and to harass to avoid it, successfully.
4) I had no astral caelum mages, but I could counter mind hunt with indies - lizard shamans and sorceresses, I had both.
5) Yes, it was MA Ermor, so what? Lvl4 spell killing SCs on overland map is still stupid.
6) Preventing SC God from killing too many units? Is it a joke?

[jutetrea]

I vote for GP's solution, sounds good. I also agree anyone who survives 75 turns of an assasination attack should be the winner.

[lch]

Kuritza said:
1) Please do read the post and comments. His mr was high, I equipped him for it, but you are 100% likely to fail one roll eventually.


I do read everything, could you please stop insinuating that I don't? "High" is a subjective number, 20 is not "high", more like 25+ and this should cancel MR-based remote attacks (almost) all the time. Your enemy would more likely waste more than a dozen turns trying to have one successful cast which still would not be a guaranteed kill in any case.


Kuritza said:
2) He was unkillable for this stupid chaff.


Just as that chaff was not possible for him to kill in that time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif The turn limit is a necessary evil which I use to great advantage. You don't have to be in a position to beat an enemy army, you just have to have units that can't be taken down in that time, causing the enemy to route. Then you need to make sure that there is no province around them to retreat to, and you kill off the entire enemy army.


Kuritza said:
6) Preventing SC God from killing too many units? Is it a joke?


Do I look like I'm joking? I have used exactly that to keep the bodycount for my pretender down in a game of mine. A pretender is important, contrary to an expendable SC, I don't want it high in the HoF with lots of kills. It seems like you didn't know what you're up against and now you're just bitter. Vengeance of the Dead is a good anti-HoF spell which will get to you in time, since even if you had defeated all those enemies you'd have doubled your bodycount by that and would then have to face double that next time.

[GrobRIM]

If I may, I think the whole problem is the 50 turn limit.

I guess this limit has been set up to make sure that all battles eventually end, so battle resolution cannot lock-up turn resolution; and I can think of many more-or-less theoretical situations where a battle might not end in a reasonable number of turns, like two SC's fighting heads up, each one with a life drain attack; or a skelly-spamming high-reinvig necromancer against a good banishing priest.

But maybe the 50-turn limit should be made more flexible; for example, once turn 50 is reached, give another 5-turn grace period, after which the battle is ended, unless at least one unit has been killed, in which case we reset the countdown to another 5 turns; or, instead of counting the number of units killed, take into account the net amount between units killed and units created.

This proposition should take care of the "SC against horde of chaff" situation raised by Kuritza.

[lch]

Gandalf Parker said:
it seems to me that if someone is attacked, and outlasts the combat, that should be considered to be a win.


A draw you mean, I hope. Suggesting that both, assassin and victim, survive the combat. Regardless who would "likely" win.

[Cor2]

I have to agree with Kuritza here. Very crappy. I like GP's solution.

[Tuidjy]

The problem is not that there is a 50 turn limit, but that the defender loses
when the limit is reached.

[Taqwus]

GrobRIM said:
But maybe the 50-turn limit should be made more flexible; for example, once turn 50 is reached, give another 5-turn grace period, after which the battle is ended, unless at least one unit has been killed, in which case we reset the countdown to another 5 turns; or, instead of counting the number of units killed, take into account the net amount between units killed and units created.



Non-summons units, perhaps. If you just kill battlefield summons, the battle may be at a stalemate (ex. two skellispammers facing off...). If you're killing the -original- components of the armies, those numbers can't increase during battle.

[thejeff]

The problem is not the limit, or even that the defender loses, the problem is that these attackers don't respect the auto-rout limit.

If they did, then they would auto-rout properly and flee, before the target auto-routs himself, and well before the auto-kill kicks in.

Now, changing that, which seems buggy, or at least unintended, to me, might weaken Vengeance too much. It's always seemed more useful against battle mages who are vulnerable without there meat shields than against true SCs any way.

[Gandalf Parker]

lch said:

Gandalf Parker said:
it seems to me that if someone is attacked, and outlasts the combat, that should be considered to be a win.


A draw you mean, I hope. Suggesting that both, assassin and victim, survive the combat. Regardless who would "likely" win.


A draw would be better. But the game might not support a draw. In some cases that would mean that the attackers would still be in the province (altho not with the vengeance of the undead thing in their dreams I guess). But in cases like that, I would feel that I have "won" the test or conflict if it ends without my death.

[K]

I think its very important that SCs can be killed this way. If they couldn't, then the best and only tactic in the game would be to eventually create SCs. Right now you often can't kill an SC even when you have brought your anti-SC tactics into the battle, since even reasonable protections can be brought by the SC player (like a few Fire or Astral or Death or Water mages for the W9F9 Shadow Vestal assault mentioned above).

[sum1lost]

K said:
I think its very important that SCs can be killed this way. If they couldn't, then the best and only tactic in the game would be to eventually create SCs. Right now you often can't kill an SC even when you have brought your anti-SC tactics into the battle, since even reasonable protections can be brought by the SC player (like a few Fire or Astral or Death or Water mages for the W9F9 Shadow Vestal assault mentioned above).


As it is, SC's are extremely powerful. This keeps them from winning the game on their own, thankfully.

[Tuidjy]

I don't like draws. If an army attacks and cannot conquer, it should flee the
province. If an assassin cannot kill the target in a set time, he should be,
at the very least, made to attack the province during the battle phase. The
army camp was alerted, everyone encircled the commander's tent, let the assassin
try to take them all on. If he wins or manages to flee, more power to him.

Of course, in the nightmare case, i.e. special monsters, the attackers should
just go 'poof'.

[thejeff]

So the arguments are that first, Vengeance isn't really a big deal since it's easily avoidable with mr and a proper SC can kill them all anyway.
And second, that it's an essential counter without which SCs would be unstoppable?

(Ok, it's different people making the arguments, but it was strange to read.)

[Tuidjy]

It is always a big deal when any unit dies due to a bug. A defender dying because
of the time limit is a bug, or at least goes against precendent and common sense.

Once again, I believe that the number of vengeful souls should remain uncapped, and
that the spell should remain relatively low level. But I also think that the
target should survive the experience if he wakes up before shades get him.

[lch]

thejeff said:
So the arguments are that first, Vengeance isn't really a big deal since it's easily avoidable with mr and a proper SC can kill them all anyway. And second, that it's an essential counter without which SCs would be unstoppable?


What it boils down to is that OPs thug was not as awesome and unstoppable as he had hoped it to be and it was brought down by a cunning move of his enemy. Being catched off guard by this surprise element of the game he felt wronged.

[PvK]

Since it Vengeance Of The Dead a magical nightmare attack, I'm not sure the realism argument holds - maybe if the victim doesn't kill the hordes in time, the dream ends with them carrying him away to Hades. Or not.

On principle I agree I'd prefer it if a time limit resulted in a draw and not an attacker win.

As far as balance goes, I think VOTD is a nicely thematic anti-SC spell. Similarly, I personally think the game is more interesting when not dominated by SC's.

Ideally, I think I'd prefer to see time limits resulting in a draw, and VOTD being more interesting, such as including the slain units more like they were in life, for example with different types of undead based on who was killed, slain mages retaining some of their magic, some slain warriors as armed soulless or longdead, slain elephants as undead elephants, etc, but also not multiplied by killing souls during VOTD - it doesn't make sense to me that killing a returning soul (or mindless living unit) would cause it to appear twice in the next VOTD attack.

[lch]

PvK said:
but also not multiplied by killing souls during VOTD - it doesn't make sense to me that killing a returning soul (or mindless living unit) would cause it to appear twice in the next VOTD attack.


Yup, I have to agree that I don't think that this is thematic in any way. Killing VOTD undeads should not count towards the ghosts that haunt you in your dreams, because there won't be another spirit to haunt you after you killed its body the second time, at least it's not understandable why it should.

[Tuidjy]

It would be great if the vengeful souls reflected the slain enemies, but I am
afraid that no such information is kept at this time. After all, every single
troop(!) has a kill counter, it would be unthinkable to remember the type of
enemies killed.

And yes, the kills during the nightmare should not count, but I am pretty sure
that the counter is incremented during the 'die' method, and it may be too
much bother to fix that. After all there are plenty of other examples where the
enemy lacks a soul and still increments the counter.

And because it is impossible to prevent the doubling of enemies until the
target fails to kill them within the time limit and dies, I think that if he
wakes up, he should live.

As for the souls carrying the target to Hades, they wish! They had plenty of
time, and could not manage to subdue him. Empty handed they leave :-)

[BigDisAwesome]

I lost a W9 Blue dragon really early in a MP game because of this spell. He had a 20+ MR but after 2-3 turns of 4 mages spamming it he eventually lost one and couldn't defeat all the ghosts. I was pretty bummed out.

[LoloMo]

How about in a draw, you survive but is feebleminded.

[lch]

Ah, it seems that if the poor victim can't kill off those that haunt his dreams in time he just NEVER wakes up. So what? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Salamander8]

Kind of a side question, but related to VotD. I know your guards don't help against this spell, but do say, Dai Oni's wolf pals appear for this spell?

[Loren]

GrobRIM said:
If I may, I think the whole problem is the 50 turn limit.

I guess this limit has been set up to make sure that all battles eventually end, so battle resolution cannot lock-up turn resolution; and I can think of many more-or-less theoretical situations where a battle might not end in a reasonable number of turns, like two SC's fighting heads up, each one with a life drain attack; or a skelly-spamming high-reinvig necromancer against a good banishing priest.

But maybe the 50-turn limit should be made more flexible; for example, once turn 50 is reached, give another 5-turn grace period, after which the battle is ended, unless at least one unit has been killed, in which case we reset the countdown to another 5 turns; or, instead of counting the number of units killed, take into account the net amount between units killed and units created.

This proposition should take care of the "SC against horde of chaff" situation raised by Kuritza.



I also agree that I don't like the turn limit. I understand that something is necessary to avoid infinite battles but I see other fixes:

1) After reaching the turn limit compare the total hp of real units (not anything that was summoned for the battle and won't persist afterwards) for the last 5 turns vs the 5 turns before that. So long as the current number is lower than the previous one the battle continues.

2) Retreat from an infinite battle should not be deadly unless there is no other way to resolve the situation:
2a) The defender keeps the province no matter what.
2b) Assassins and other such stealth units go back into stealth.
2c) It should be an orderly retreat instead of a rout. All units should remain with their leaders and go back to a single randomly-chosen province. Even units like mercenaries should do this.
This leaves only one truly deadly situation: Attackers who teleported in and can't go into stealth.

[Kuritza]

I do read everything, could you please stop insinuating that I don't? "High" is a subjective number, 20 is not "high", more like 25+ and this should cancel MR-based remote attacks (almost) all the time.


No I can't because if you do read what I say, you ignore it. Lets see. 18 MR base, +3 mr rainbow armor, +4 antimagic amulet. Thats 25 already; also he was in a friendly domain. Is that HIGH to you?
Also, about counters. Paralyze alone takes care of SCs, its got an enormous penetration so even if units fail to kill an SC, said SC wont do anything during a battle. SCs dont dominate Dominions 3 as they used to in Dom2 anymore.
What I object against is taking care of an SC anywhere on a map with a low-research spell by exploiting an autorout by generating a 'no-retreat is possible combat' and multitudes of rout-immune troops, its CHEAP. You keep pointing out that everything should have a counter. So, 25+ MR is not a counter, astral mage (as with mind hunt) is not a counter, being invulnerable to these zombies is not a counter. If thats not a glitch, I dont know what is.

[lch]

Kuritza said:
No I can't because if you do read what I say, you ignore it. Lets see. 18 MR base, +3 mr rainbow armor, +4 antimagic amulet. Thats 25 already; also he was in a friendly domain. Is that HIGH to you?


Being a good fellow reader of all your posts I'm fairly sure that this is the first time that you posted any actual numbers. Give it a rest, will you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif So, I'm not that good at statistics, but not counting any other kind of bonus, I think that your enemy beat you at a 81% chance (or better) of resisting said spell. Good for him. Especially since he caught you "off-guard", wielding an uneffective Frost Brand against cold immune troops.

Kuritza said:
You keep pointing out that everything should have a counter.


I keep pointing out that this spell is ineffective under certain situations, yes. It won't work against undeads, it won't be a danger if your pretender doesn't waltz through the enemy lines and kills hundreds. I think that it might not work against glamor or even stealthy units, not sure.
If you employ a SC-type pretender then usually you should be aware that he is going to go down at one point or the other. I for one would not like if there weren't any early-game counters against those - yes, even with low-tech research.
The turn limit is a necessary evil that we have to live with and raising the bar doesn't help against reaching it eventually. Alternatives to what happens after the turn limit are open to discussion and pro's and con' have to get weighted. Most suggestions here would help to make SC types even stronger and cement them as unbeatable foes in game.


Salamander8 said:
Kind of a side question, but related to VotD. I know your guards don't help against this spell, but do say, Dai Oni's wolf pals appear for this spell?


They should, same about undead from the Wraith crown or water elementals from the bottle of water. Anything you summon will help, and these auto-summon at start of battle.

[Kuritza]

So basically, with a MR as high as you can get, you have a 20% chance to die even if you sit in your capitol. Which, in turn, means that all Ermor needs is 15 astral gems or less (12 in my case, 2 attempts per turn for 2 turns). Please tell me how is it fair? Isnt a goddamn paralyze not good enough as a counter?
Did he catch me off guard without an aoe-weapon? Pray tell me, how can MA Caelum make a fire brand early in the game then.
SCs are unbalanced? Really, in a game where 2x bless vans or shadow vestals etc can rush you into oblivion before you even research construction 4? So SCs need a low-level global spell that kills them 1/5 of the time. Makes so much sense to give a reliable and uncounteralbe overland map counter for my counter, its not enough that SCs are very easy to counter on the battlefield for an astral-using nation.

[Jazzepi]

lch said:

Kuritza said:
No I can't because if you do read what I say, you ignore it. Lets see. 18 MR base, +3 mr rainbow armor, +4 antimagic amulet. Thats 25 already; also he was in a friendly domain. Is that HIGH to you?


Being a good fellow reader of all your posts I'm fairly sure that this is the first time that you posted any actual numbers. Give it a rest, will you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif So, I'm not that good at statistics, but not counting any other kind of bonus, I think that your enemy beat you at a 81% chance (or better) of resisting said spell. Good for him. Especially since he caught you "off-guard", wielding an uneffective Frost Brand against cold immune troops.



I'm going to have to agree with Ich on this one. VoTD killed your SC. It sounds like if your SC had a firebrand in hand he would have ripped through the hordes of undead and this conversation wouldn't even be happening right now.

IMHO, you were ill prepared for a well placed attack that had a low 1/5 chance of penetrating your MR, but did. Perhaps it was cast multiple times in the same round, I don't know what kind of message the spell gives if it fizzles. Or maybe it was cast by a mage with lots of spell penetration items, it's not hard to get +5 with construction 4 and a rainbow mage.

In any case, I think the way to look at it is like this.

VoTD has three checks/requirements before it kills the target
1. The victim has to have high enough kills.
2. The victim has to fail an MR roll.
3. The victim has to fail to kill all the undead in 75 turns.

So instead of complaining about the fact that the SC routed and died after 75 turns, I think it's just more interesting to think about it like a third check that VoTD has on it.

Also, friendly dominion doesn't mean anything for MR saves unless it was a prophet or God.

Jazzepi

[Kuritza]

Also, friendly dominion doesn't mean anything for MR saves unless it was a prophet or God.



Sigh... yes, it was my God. I'm still open to suggestions about how to make a non-frost aoe weapon for a MA Caelum early in the game with an SC god.
And while we are at it, how to avoid getting many kills if you rely on your God to survive agains 2x bless shadow vestals and hordes of undead.
Which leaves us with just one condition, namely MR. Which means its just a matter of time when your God dies, you cant do jack about it.

[Jazzepi]

Kuritza said:

Also, friendly dominion doesn't mean anything for MR saves unless it was a prophet or God.



Sigh... yes, it was my God. I'm still open to suggestions about how to make a non-frost aoe weapon for a MA Caelum early in the game with an SC god.
And while we are at it, how to avoid getting many kills if you rely on your God to survive agains 2x bless shadow vestals and hordes of undead.
Which leaves us with just one condition, namely MR. Which means its just a matter of time when your God dies, you cant do jack about it.



You trade with people. There isn't always going to be a way to shield your SCs from death, and that's the whole point. They are suppose to die eventually. If he got attacked by 400 ghosts, your SC definitely did his job.

Jazzepi

[Aethyr]

Gandalf Parker said:
Purely on an RPG thematic argument (translation: getting Kristoffer to bug Johan about this)...
it seems to me that if someone is attacked, and outlasts the combat, that should be considered to be a win. If you want a thematic result to the fact that the combat ran into overtime with attackers still on the field, then toss them into a general combat as if they were attacking the province.

[Aethyr]

Ooops, I guess I have not mastered the "quote" function yet. GP's suggestion still seems to be the best resolution to this issue.

[Dhaeron]

Chalk me up as another one who thinks it's perfect the way it is.
The spell can be quite a powerful tool but has so many conditions that have to be fulfilled for it to be used that i'd consider it a lot weaker overall than earth attack for example.
MR negates
It needs a SC with many kills to work, and an SC that can not dispose of arbitrarily large armies of chaff (no king of elemental fire will ever be afraid of VotD)
Casting several times can produce a lot of kills but here comes MR into plaz again. If you have a 10% or so chance to succeed having to succeed five times doesn't make the spell that cheap anymore.
There aren't many recruitable or summonable caster that can cast this spell.
Target must sleep. (many of the best SCs are undead)
You can shield against it with 100% effectiveness in a provice if you get a decent chaff-killer. Sure, they're not too easy to get but how many provinces besides your home province do you need permanently protected anyway?
If you manage to get all the conditions right the spell can be very damaging, but so can be many others.
A tactic isn't too powerful if you get hit once and loose because of it. If it's truly too powerful youd get hit by it all the time because everyone would be using it exclusively.
Removing the turn limit or making the defender survive on a draw would render the spell totally useless. Nothing worth killing with the spell would ever die to it. Any thug or SC hardy enough to rack up a few hundred kills will never be killed by the chaff, so overwhelming him and getting him auto-killed after turn 50 is the real point of using the spell.

[Edi]

Kuritza said:
So basically, with a MR as high as you can get, you have a 20% chance to die even if you sit in your capitol. Which, in turn, means that all Ermor needs is 15 astral gems or less (12 in my case, 2 attempts per turn for 2 turns). Please tell me how is it fair? Isnt a goddamn paralyze not good enough as a counter?
Did he catch me off guard without an aoe-weapon? Pray tell me, how can MA Caelum make a fire brand early in the game then.
SCs are unbalanced? Really, in a game where 2x bless vans or shadow vestals etc can rush you into oblivion before you even research construction 4? So SCs need a low-level global spell that kills them 1/5 of the time. Makes so much sense to give a reliable and uncounteralbe overland map counter for my counter, its not enough that SCs are very easy to counter on the battlefield for an astral-using nation.


So, if you have a SC pretender with hundreds of kills and you know there's a spell like VotD around and you do not have the effective counters to it yet, WHY is your god sitting still in the capital waiting for the axe to fall?

The enemy must be able to pinpoint the location of the god before he can nail it with VotD and if you move your god around, instead of a single VotD, he needs to blanket your whole damned territory or at the very least several provinces with the spell and that gets expensive gem and mage-turn wise very fast.

To be blunt, I read the whole thread through and all I'm getting from your post is a sense of outrage that your god got killed because you
a) failed to take certain possibilities into account
b) lacked the equipment that would have made the difference because you had not traded for it yet at that point
c) knew you were getting hammered with a potentially lethal overland spell and SAT STILL, waiting for the axe to fall.

Let's see, sympathy meter reading...yep, big, round zero.

The turn limit is necessary, though some increase might do good and the default resolution of exceeding the limit is up for discussion. The default resolution for VotD and possibly also for attacks spawned by Looming Hell are easily explained by the target of the attack running out of mental resources to resist if the turn limit is reached.

[Kuritza]

Let's see, sympathy meter reading...yep, big, round zero.


Oh, no problem at all, its mutual. I just love ignorant people.
>> a) failed to take certain possibilities into account
I failed? How come, do you read my mind? I knew this might happen, and I couldnt do anything about it. This is where frustration comes from, no valid coulter in my situation, I was made a sitting duck by game mechanics. Besides, I was kinda caught by surprise by the fact these zombies dont ever rout, I expected mindless undead to dissolve in the end.
>> b) lacked the equipment that would have made the difference because you had not traded for it yet at that point
Abyssia just researched lvl 4 construction. Nobody else could craft it; not all nations go into construction first, you know. I'll receive firebrand next turn, too bad my 25+ MR didnt let me surivive more than one round. See the point? Let me show you: VotD is just a lvl4 research spell which kicks in early, I simply had no way of preparing for it. I had nobody to trade for it with, period.
>> c) knew you were getting hammered with a potentially lethal overland spell and SAT STILL, waiting for the axe to fall.
I knew I am getting hammered with a potentially lethal overland spell still and I SAT STILL IN A FRIENDLY DOMAIN BECAUSE I COULDNT HIDE FROM IT, ITS OVERLAND! THATS THE WHOLE DAMN POINT, YOU CANT HIDE FROM THIS AXE IN MANY CASES.
And the fact the spell is situational doesnt make it less OP in these situations.

Lets see, sympathy meter reading... yes, below the ground.

The default resolution for VotD and possibly also for attacks spawned by Looming Hell are easily explained by anything, as usual with fictional things, and I can come with 2x as much good explainations why attackers should lose, you can even find some good ones in this very thread.

[Aethyr]

Dude, ya gotta relax a bit.

Here's the deal: sometimes, either because of the side you've chosen, or how you've built your God, or how you've equipped your SC, you may not have a counter for certian things. It's called "balance". Get over it and prepare yourselve better next time.

[Kuritza]

I always thought that balance is when you can find a counter for arising threats. Like, equip an SC against F9W9 sacreds, or paralyze enemy SC to let your sacred overwhelm him. When you cannot, its lack thereof.
I'd agree that its my failure to find a countermeasure if there were and AOE lightning weapon, for example. But so far, only a few items are fit for SCs, despite the many choices. Same applies to armors and shields, sadly - mostly because of encumberance. But thats another story.

[Edi]

Kuritza said:
I knew I am getting hammered with a potentially lethal overland spell still and I SAT STILL IN A FRIENDLY DOMAIN BECAUSE I COULDNT HIDE FROM IT, ITS OVERLAND! THATS THE WHOLE DAMN POINT, YOU CANT HIDE FROM THIS AXE IN MANY CASES.


So, moving around, as in not giving the enemy a sitting, guaranteed target he knows where to whack every turn isn't a potential counter? I know magic attacks come before movement, but if you manage to move out once you know you're being targeted, he needs to take the shotgun to targeting. You may not be able to hide 100% effectively, but you can try to dodge and based on what has been said, it seems that you did not try that.

Make a SC god, run the risk of having it pasted by something unexpected in the early game, because SCs actually take some time to develop. You're still screaming about sour grapes related to one game because you ran afoul of that risk.

Get back to me when you have some actual evidence of VotD being as overpowered across the board as you are making it out to be.

[Kuritza]

And then there are spies, ok? I never said my God didnt move after turn 1. Or, for arguments sake, you may be pushed back by initial attack far enough not to have much provinces to hide in. 2x bless rushes do such things to people.
Get back to you with actual evidence... and you will dismiss it again? I just gave you an example of what can happen when your nation doesnt have an access to fire brand and you rely on SC god for repelling the early rushes. Nearly every time there's some 2x bless van, or Ermor, or Mictlan, or all of them. And its fair, but 'SCs should take time to develop', so countering these rushes is not fair.

[thejeff]

Well, if his enemy has scouts out, moving the SC will probably just leave him vulnerable in a different province. Probably one with lower dominion and thus lower mr (since it was his god).

I know I try to blanket my enemies lands with scouts as soon as I can.

For the record, I don't really have an opinion of VotD being overpowered. I do think the Dead not routing when they should ("special monsters are routed" message) is cheesy and quite possibly unintended.

[Kuritza]

>> I don't really have an opinion of VotD being overpowered. I do think the Dead not routing when they should ("special monsters are routed" message) is cheesy and quite possibly unintended.

I couldnt have said it better. I had no problem knowing 400+ units will attack my God, he's a SC after all. Or that my mages wont surivive even 30-40 zombies, its ok. Thats what this spell is for, if you ask me.
Its the autokill thing that freaked me out.

[Tuidjy]

This discussion has gotten to the point where no one says anything new:

These are the three positions.

1. VotD is fine as it is. Some targets are immune, MR helps, real SCs
can handle the task, hide the target.

2. VotD is overpowered. It is very low level, it's available to bless
rushing nations, MR eventually fails, if a SC is hiding he is not SCing.

3. VotD default resolution is counterintuitive and exploitable. The
rule is 'defenders win a stalemate', constant doubling of the task will
soon make it impossible, it's stupid when the hero is unharmed but dies.

It is clear from my posts that my position matches #3. It is just as clear
where everyone else stands. This thread has descended into name calling.
Until one of developers tells us whether the current outcome is what he
had in mind, the discussion is pointless.

[BigDisAwesome]

Well put Tuidjy. I'll go ahead and chime in and agree with #3.

[Yucky]

Did your god not have Air magic? The Evocation 2 spell "Shock Wave" seems like it would be great for taking out swarms.

Since the attack takes place in the commander's dream, I suppose bodyguards are left out?

[llamabeast]

Very well put Tuidjy.

I'm a #3 guy myself.

[llamabeast]

Incidentally I think a couple of points made in this thread are not quite right.

Firstly the 81% avoidance isn't right as I understand it. Assuming the enemy mage has zero penetration nad your guy has MR 25, I think the chance of the spell getting through is less than 1% (see the +15 entry in the DRN table at the start of the manual - if my memory serves correctly in only actually goes up to +14 so the chance is off-the-scale small and you were very unlucky).

Secondly moving around can't help you with 'dodging' since rituals happen before movement. So if your enemy can see you with scouts (not too hard) he has a 100% chance of getting the right province.

[lch]

llamabeast said:
Firstly the 81% avoidance isn't right as I understand it.


Yeah, I can't count. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Saint_Dude]

Several points:

1) MR is not as effective vs. remote map spells as one would predict. I have done extensive testing with Mind Hunt and have come to the conclusion that MR is effectively 2 less vs. remote spells compared to battle field spells (i.e MR 25 acts like MR 23).

2) VOTD can kill immortal pretenders in their home prov. Immortals that die in friendly dominion due to the 75 turn autoroute rule do not reappear in their capital the following turn. I have lost a Risen Oracle (with 750 kills) in friendly dominion to this spell.

3) No matter how awesome your SC, there will be a number of undead which can not be defeated in the turn limit. I have had a lot of SCs with over 1000 kills. There is no way (that I know of) to take out that many undead in 75 turns. And even if you could, the next go around you would be facing 2000 undead. The end result is inevitable.

4) If the only true counter to the spell is to run away and hide in a remote part of the map, then the SC is effectively killed as soon as he finds himself targeted. He certainly isn't going to be hanging around on the front lines doing any good.

[Valandil]

Equally many points:

1) I hadn't noticed this. Is it possible that your testing failed to account for another factor that was present in all remote cases, but not all battlefield ones?
(dominion, astral magic, enchantments?) I'm not questioning your metheods, of course, just trying to verify results.

2) This is weird, and probably unintended. I had also noticed weirdness with immortality and the turn limit.

3) Of course correct, but I think this highlights an important fact: Any SC (or unit, for that matter) can be brought down by expenditure of a given number of resources. In the case of VOTD the resources expended are mage-time, gems. The SC killed by VOTD must then be more valuable than the sum of the values of the mages, the gems expended, and the values of the units he killed before the Vengeance kills him. In many cases, vengeance of the dead is not actually a cost-effective solution (eg. a MR 23 W9 Dragon with no magic items and 100 kills. -not really an SC, I know.)

I believe that killing 1200 undead in 75 turns is very possible. I personally have used (against LE Ermor) an archangel with the forbidden light (and SC equipment), casting fire storm. Actually, anything that scales with the numbeer of opponents (battlefield enchs., mainly) would probably work.

4) As per above, you can also not counter it except with good equipment and high MR, and rely on cost effectiveness and economics. Alternatively, you could teleport/cloud trapeze/one of the five million other movement spells to somewhere totally different, or sue for clemency (ie. diplomacy). Or you could put up a dome of flaming death.


In all honesty, VOTD really isn't any better, even considering its low cost in research and gems, than earth attack, mind hund, manifestation, disease demon (AAH!), etc.

Granted, I'm a pretty awful MP player with almost no experience, so what do I know?

[RedWurm]

It's not an easy issue. While VotD is less than ideal in some ways - undead adding to the unit count, death by turn limit - it is designed to be an anti-SC spell, and a nicely ironic one at that. if the turn limit had no negative effect, there would be yet another defense against it in the form of very good armour.

er... so I agree with all three of Tuidjy's positions. VotD in its current form has to be overpowered in some situations to be effective in the rest. the default resolution, likewise, is not very satisfying, but 'you wake up and find it was all a dream' is not an improvement.

the questions I'm having trouble resolving are whether VotD does what it's supposed to do. are the special cases we're discussing broken or not according to its intention? should there be a more powerful version where the enemies pose more of a direct threat, rather than victory by exploit? these are all balance questions, and I'm not good with those. All I know is that while invincible SCs are only nice if you've got one, irony always rocks.

[Velusion]

Buff up the MR of the SC or equip yourself with items that will kill undead quickly. The end.

P.S.
Don't get so attached to your SCs.

[Micah]

Vengeance against a high-kill SC is far and away the most effective ritual to use when presented with such a target. It is effectively a save-or-die situation once the kill counter hits critical mass (around 800 or so should prove too many to kill in 75 rounds for most SCs, even a quickened AE weapon only hits 6 ghosts per round...even with a damage aura on top of that it'll be hard to keep up)

Granted a battlefield-wide spell will work, but if you have to script that to counter Vengeance then you've already lost your SC since all of a sudden he's a support mage and not an SC since you'll have to keep the BE scripted at all times, and this also requires high paths or boosters which take up SC slots. A BE cast to kill the ghosts is not an effective counter for the same reason that hiding in your capital behind 4 domes isn't...your SC might as well be dead, even if they're not actually buried.

It is massively more effective than any other remote spell because spell-sent assassins will get destroyed by any half-decent SC (earth attack, manifestation, etc.) and mind hunt has a variety of counters. The other reason that Vengeance is so annoying is because it will always target the same commander, so you can't recruit decoys.

SCs are pretty damn counterable by the correct tactics without having Vengeance in its more powerful form, and even if the 75 turn death was removed it would still be effective against any thugs that can't last for 75 turns (meaning no fatigue accumulation and a way to regain HP in battle for most of them or they'll get pinged to death) as well as any artillery mages that get a decent kill-count. It would be a niche spell at that point, but still usable when the occasion arose instead of being the go-to for a 0-risk SC kill. Lowering the gem cost to 1 or 2 in return for weakenking it would also be fair.

I guess my thing is that since SCs are on the front lines they're wading into battle turn after turn as it is, and there's plenty of chances to kill them once you're in a fight. (Soul slay, paralyze, life for a life, drain life, spamming an elemental attack they're not resistant to, beating them to death with buffed up troops, teleporting or air trapping a counter-SC in to do righteous battle...there are plenty more)

Even if the spell isn't overpowered on its own I strongly dislike any spell that is hard enough to counter that it might as well not be counterable, as is the case here (I argued against a fully-functional wind ride for the same reason). It doesn't allow an opponent a way to respond to your tactics. Doing something unexpected should be rewarded but everything should have a reasonable counter available for it.

[Saint_Dude]

Valandil -

As for mind hunting and the success of remote magic overcoming MR. . . I have carried out extensive testing of Mind Hunt (and limited testing of VOTD), literally simulating thousands of attacks with mages of different levels equipped with different combinations of penetration boosters vs. targets with MR ranging from 20 to 27 and with either drain or magic scales. All the targets in my simulations were in friendly dominion, but I don't see how that would affect much beyond the MR of pretenders and prophets (and the possible influence of magic scales which were already accounted for). None of the targets had astral paths since I was targeting 50 at a time and they would have just feebleminded my casters.

A a5 mage with +5 penetration casting Mind Hunt (+1 penetration due to level) on a target with 25 MR (in a prov with neutral magic scales), will kill said target approximately 8 or 9 % of the time (as if the calculated difference were -7 instead of -9). When the target has a MR of 21 the Mind Hunt will be successful approximately 25% of the time (as if the difference were -3 instead of -5.

When a target is in a prov with drain scales the target is more resistant to Mind Hunt, and when the target is in a prov with magic scales the target is more susceptible.

Bottom line - Mind Hunt is more effective than Soul Slay, (i.e. it has a higher kill rate).

I assume the observations that I have made with Mind Hunt carry over to VOTD, but cannot be sure at this point due to limited testing.

As for the possibility of killing 1000+ undead in a battle. . . . yes it is possible, but only for an SC that is specifically kitted and scripted to the task. If you are fighting Ermor this may occur by natural happenstance. But if you are not engaged with Ermor or fighting alongside friendly forces when the VOTD hits, it is unlikely that one would have firestorm or like spells scripted. Most battlefield spells that would work against such large numbers of undead would also injure your own troops and have significant gem costs. They are only scripted in specific scenarios.

Ohh, and I am in total agreement with Micah.

[Shovah32]

Just lost a long post due to connection trouble so here is a new one:

Im in agreement with Micah and Sant_Dude. Its too powerful and effective for its cost. If your SC is running from or specifically prepared for VotD it's probably not doing his job or is atleast not doing it as well as it could be.
Its not an expensive or high research spell and unlike certain other assasination spells its not hard to cast so dosn't require the time of a very powerful mage in many cases.
With its cost, path requirements and the seeming penetration bonus for overland spells it dosn't seemunlikely that you could get one penetration per turn.
If you managed 1 penetration per turn on, say, a 250 kill SC(after his first decent battle) then in its 4th battle against the undead, assuming it won the previous battles(a difficult task), it would be in battle with 2000 undead - a number near impossible to kill without being specifically prepared for that many undead.
Of course, after winning that battle(a feat that would probably require very high level magic making him more of a mage than an SC) he would have to face 4000 undead, if that many can evil fit on the enemies side of the battlefield.

[Velusion]

Micah said:
...mind hunt has a variety of counters.



By variety do you mean having Astral Mages? Not exactly a lot of variety.

Unless you have an SC with just a giganto-huge number of kills equipping him with a charcoal shield or casting fire shield is usually enough eat through enough chaff undead. Unquenched Sword, and the Ark are also artifacts that will do this.

Personally - I think Mind Hunt is much stronger/unbalanced, simply because mind dual/seeking arrow can counter any astral presence. Without astral presence Mind Hunt is evil.

I would agree that there are too many remote leader killer spells (it stagnates the late game) but as compared to say, Mind Hunt, I don't think it is much worse.

[Valandil]

Thanks for the info, Saint Dude. I did not know that.

Obviously, the battlefield enchs. were not really proposed as a counter to VOTD, just as a way to kill 1200+ undead.
I was responding to the OP, who stated that VOTD was uncounterable, which it is not. As many of you correctly point out, these 'counters' are impractical in that they deprive your SC of the ability to act in an SC role, effectively neutralising it. This is, I think, true of several other remote assassination spells.

It is possible that VOTD is unbalancing, but it seems unlikely, given the rare occasions where it is useful. The bell of cleansing would be pretty imbalanced if it targeted non-demons too (maybe...actually, probably not).

[Micah]

Decoys were the other option I was thinking of Vel, which obviously doesn't work whatsoever against Vengeance. It's not optimal certainly, but it helps out a good deal (I'll usually recruit a commander in a province I just took over since that happens before rituals...30g for a 50% resistance to mind hunt with no MM is a fairly good deal) If your opponent is launching volleys of them that'll go through the chaff then yes, having your own mages is the only real viable solution, but if you don't have any mages that far into the game you're kind of screwed anyhow. And it's a sweet bonus when you feeblemind their mages with astral casters, which won't happen with Vengeance.

Plus since intelligence isn't optimal the appearance of astral mages is usually enough to stop the mind hunts, even if there isn't a mage in the province. It's a lot riskier to spam it.

[NTJedi]

GrobRIM said:
If I may, I think the whole problem is the 50 turn limit.




That's exactly why I recommended a game option where the player can choose the battlefield turn limits. I have two fast computers which can easily triple the battlefield turn limits. I'm sure some gamers have systems even faster than mine. It's sad losing a battle because the attacker runs out of turns. It's like some union law which forces all soldiers/commanders to flee at 5pm... and golems can stay until 8pm.

on a side note

During DOM_2 I lost my attacking SC during a battle because my SC was paralyzed from the dispossed spirits and the dispossed spirits couldn't flee because my SC was blocking the way. As a result after 100 turns... my SC was auto_killed. This should be changed to auto_retreat.

[sum1lost]

Possible solution- in some results, 'ghost version' of the target attacks the mage.

[Xox]

I also vote #3

This spell is fine except for an obvious bug that causes the defender to lose a turn limit stlaemate. Defender should win that. Submit to bug list and see what devs say.

[Aethyr]

I also vote #3.

[Kuritza]

So, if we agree upon #3 (I sure do), who's going to submit it to bug list? I dont know how it's done.

[llamabeast]

I've done it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Digress]

On this whole doubling the horde of undead after each successful casting of VotD - should undead kills count for this spell in the first place ?

The spell isn't Vengeance of the Undead. Do mindless zombies have souls which need to be avenged ? I don't think so.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Having read all of this thread, I would tend to agree with Edi. However, a few points I have thought of:

1) VotD, Dreams of Rl'yeh. Do these work like Arena fights? (If so, this would explain why Immortals still die.) If not, then auto-destroy at turn limit killing Immortals seems like a bug.

2) Assuming a 4% chance to work (and this may be high), odds are it will take 16 castings for VotD to affect the target (0.96^x=0.5; x*log 0.96=log 0.5; x=(log 0.96)/(log 0.5)). This, therefore, requires 16 mage-turns of, what, a SSSD or DDDS or whichever it is, which is, in itself, 96 Research, as well as the upkeep of those mages. Assuming it's not even a threat to a SC with less than 100 kills, well, it seems rather fair. That's 16 times the cost of the spell (2 pearls, right?), 16 mage-turns of a decent mage type, and to have already killed 100+ troops. And, yes, it's a God in this case, so he can be called back. This by Caelum, in this case, which doesn't even have to worry about losing Mage-turns to Call God.

These are the numbers to look at. Is _this_ considered fair? (And, of course, understand that _this_ particular case involves someone without a weapon that can hurt Undead. It is conceivable that with a better Weapon (which I understand the OP didn't have access to) he could have lived through this attack, and caused the number of castings to double.

Any error in the numerical analysis?

Wyatt Hebert

[thejeff]

Part of the problem with this discussion is that the two sides of the debate seem to be talking past each other.

One side, largely, is saying that dying because the attackers don't auto-rout when they should is wrong.

The other side is saying the overall chance of killing an SC is low, so the spell is balanced.

These are different arguments. They're not even opposed. The spell can be balanced, but achieve its affect in an unfair way. I'd say that's where I stand. The balance is likely fine, it may even be underpowered, but losing an SC due to time limits when the attacker should rout first is a lousy way to achieve that balance.

I'd suggest either strengthening or cheapening the spell, but allowing the dead to rout, by giving them a few non-mindless commanders if necessary.

Are there any other ways to get an attack force (either assassination or province attack type spell) without a commander? Phantasmal attack, maybe? (I think that's what it's called. The one that sends phantasmal warriors to attack a province?) Are they mindless?

[Kuritza]

>> These are the numbers to look at.

The numbers lie. I am not sure why, but astral spells with some penetration items work FAR better than beforementioned 4%. In my case it took exactly 3 castings to pass through 25 MR, supposedly without any penetration items on casting mages. Heck, I routinely have my 25-MR SCs paralyzed with the very first casting for 40+ turns, and I have given up hope of ever using a SC against R'lyeh.
Your 16 attempts number looks really, really overestimated.

And in case of Caelum you can count the turns you have to spend recruiting priests for calling back your God instead of recruiting mages and the losses your army will suffer without him now that your God doesnt stand between your mages and enemy sacreds. Probably you will simply lose the game.
Ah, and the mage-turns for equipping your god again.
Oh, and why bother calling him, he still has all these kills on him and will eat VotD again.

And one more thing to consider. This is not just a highly situational SC-removal spell. Most mages dont stand a chance against 40-50 zombies they will likely have to face alone, which is a very good result for 3 astral pearls.

[Reverend Zombie]

How about...removing the turn limit entirely for VotD attacks?

[thejeff]

Highly agreed with Kuritza's last point.
I'd always considered it much more useful against battle mages who've racked up a decent number of kills, than against SCs. I just assumed most SCs would survive it. Hadn't considered the turn limit.

[Kuritza]

Thats the ideal solution to me (there might not be a stalemate in VotD, but default), but all exceptions require the devs to change game code usually, which they hate.
I am not speaking about the Dominions devs now, of course, but I guess there are serious reasons for such trend.

[Valandil]

Removing the turn limit can cause serious problems. Some immobile units might be targetable with VOTD, but unable to kill or be killed by the spirits. (Eg only deals cold damage). Upon hosting, computer go boom!

[thejeff]

Yeah, removing the limit would be a bad idea. (And in general require weird exceptions in the code, which is usually a bad idea.)

Better to change it so that the undead will auto rout when they hit their turn limit.

[Wyatt Hebert]

You say the numbers lie. Very well, they may. However, do you even understand the information assumed by the numbers? For example, what is the probability that it will take as few as 3 castings (Given it has a 4% chance each time)? Exactly 3 castings is .96*.96*.04. Exactly 2 castings would be .96*.04, and Exactly 1 casting is .04, by definition. This leads to a probability of 11.52%.

Now, _assuming that 3 castings will penetrate 50% of the time_, the actual probability of failure is x^3=0.5, or ~79%. This gives the chance of success at 21%. If this is accurately the chance of success, then the game code does have issues.

I guess the other consideration is the path combination required to cast VotD. I _think_ that only MA Ermor has the requisite paths innately (i.e. giving the cost information is correct), though I could easily be mistaken on that score. The other check is that, possibly, it's overpowered in Ermor's case. Granted, from what is apparently a subtext of this message, Ermor has the capability to not only use double blessed Shadow Vestals AND VotD. Now, is THIS overpowered, and, if so, what could be done to fix the combo without changing VotD.

Oh, and please note that I _estimated_ nothing. I simply applied binomial statistics. _Given_ a 4% success rate, there is a probability slightly higher than 50% that the first 16 trials will fail. Stated slightly differently, what is the probability of rolling <49 on a d50 16 times in a row? ~50%. If the success rate is wrong, of course the result will be wrong. That's why I did the secondary calculation assuming your case was an average one. I doubt your case was average, however. I think the Ermorian player got lucky with a roll at some point. ~21% chance of success is to hit someone with, I believe, only 2-3 points higher than you. That would, I believe, imply something on the order of +12 Penetration, which is nigh impossible that early in a game.

Let's figure out how the numbers fall out, and then we'll start worrying. If astral spells have a bonus to penetration overland, that needs to be verified and fixed, unless that is working as intended. Honestly, VotD might require one higher in one of its two paths, and that probably would help. On the other hand, I think some of the stuff in the next patch is Shadow Vestal being reduced, so that might help this kind of situation, too.

Let's look at the issue holistically, rather than the specific cause of death. Can we agree on that?

Wyatt Hebert

P.S. I am planning, time-allowing, to run a test scenario with VotD. Ermor vs. Ulm, and I will be paying close attention to Penetration vs. MR score each time. Combat occurs before dominion change, and spells happen before Combat, so the numbers I read on the turn should be the numbers used in the calculation, correct?

[thejeff]

Let's look at the issue holistically, rather than the specific cause of death. Can we agree on that?



No, we can't. That's the point I was trying to make earlier.

By holistically, you seem to mean from a balance point of view, not a thematic one. But I'm not arguing a balance issue.

I'm not arguing that the spell is overpowered. I'm arguing that auto kills because the undead don't rout or die when the attacking side is supposed to are a problem.
If that gets fixed, then VotD may need a cost or path decrease , or a boost in power to compensate. Or not if the auto kill was unintended.
The spell would remain useful taking out evocation type battle mages, regardless.

[llamabeast]

Exactly 3 castings is .96*.96*.04



You mean 3*.96*.96*.04 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Sorry, couldn't help it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[sum1lost]

Perhaps if non-mindless units didn't count towards kill numbers...?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Did you mean 'if mindless units' rather than non-mindless?

I'd imagine it hard to get into the hall of fame.

[sum1lost]

Lazy_Perfectionist said:
Did you mean 'if mindless units' rather than non-mindless?

I'd imagine it hard to get into the hall of fame.



Yes. That.

if mindless didn't count towards kills. Or at least if mindless troops weren't counted under the Votd thing.

[DenStoreFrelser]

sum1won said:
if mindless didn't count towards kills. Or at least if mindless troops weren't counted under the Votd thing.



If surviving a VotD means you get twice the number of happinesses the next time around, I doubt there's a second stat for mindless kills, or a stat for "unavenged" (the VotD thing) kills. Depending on what the code is like, adding a new stat for all units could be a pain, especially for such a small thing as a single spell making copies of ghosts, but it's the only solution I can see that wouldn't change anything else in the game.

[Tuidjy]

Why not just make it so that if you survive 75 turns, you live? Nothing else
gets changed, and the exploit stops working.

[OmikronWarrior]

llamabeast said:

Exactly 3 castings is .96*.96*.04



You mean 3*.96*.96*.04 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Sorry, couldn't help it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



No, he was right. If the order doesn't matter, then yeah you'd times the odds by three. However, he's assuming EXACTLY 3 castings, which means only the last casting can be a success. Ergo, order is important, and the only order possible is Failure, Failure, Success. If you want to know the odds of succeeding in three or less trials, you need to independently figure out the odds of succeeding an exactly 1 and 2 trials and add them together (with 3 trials, of course).

On another note, maybe its possible to meet both positions halfway. A, it stinks to die due to a game mechanism clearly designed for other situations. B, it can be thematic and the spell works fine as it is.

My idea would be to simply start "mindless dissolution" on turn 50. This is the rule that mindless beings left with out a commander have a 33% chance of spontaneously dieing every turn. In addition they won't move and will only attack units already adjacent to them. This means any individual soulless unit will only have a ~.5% chance of going all 25 turns with out dissolving. Clearly in large numbers some will remain. That's not the point. Now, the target actually has a chance to finish off the chaff. If they still can't do that by 75 turns... let 'em die.

[llamabeast]

Oh I see where he's coming from now - I hadn't understood he was summing them up like that. Got it.

[Wyatt Hebert]

thejeff: By holistically, I mean the problem of MA Ermor being one of only a few nations that have recruitable mages easily able to cast VotD combined with the double-bless Shadow Vestal rush. The problem seems to be that he couldn't move around due to the rush, and he got lots of kills (and didn't have time for an efficient anti-Undead capability) due to the rush, then got dropped by VotD. Without either one, VotD wouldn't have been as big of a deal.

Honestly, without the capability to spam it, there are much better answers, even Overland answers, to a SC (from what I read).


llamabeast: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I do hope I didn't make a mistake. It would have been bad if I had, but I did check it the inverse way, too. The probability of NOT getting a success in the first 3 is 0.96^3 (starting with three failures)*, ergo 1-0.96^3 is the probability of getting a success in the first 3, which is still 11.52%.

Let's see if I understand something about the rules. 1) All units are set to autoroute after 50 turns. 2) Mindless units without a commander or with a routing commander dissolve instead of routing. 3) You cannot retreat in Assassination attempts. 4) VotD is an assassination.

Are any of these incorrect?

This looks like a problem induced by the bug-fix to complete shut off retreat in an assassination attempt. Without substantial changes to the code or changes to the gameplay (allow retreats from Assassinations, which will kill you), or both (allow retreats, but you don't die), I fail to see how this problem can be resolved. The simplest solution might be to allow mindless units to be tagged to retreat in Assassination attempts; this will, of course, have its own share of consequences.

Thoughts?

Oh, and VotD is hardly needed against most combat casters. Earth Attack is probably superior for that purpose (I might be wrong, but that's one tough Elemental, and it tramples quite well). It takes a single path (typically easier to get), costs a bit more, but has no MR check. The only other issue is that it's easier to 'hide' from, but enough races can cast and spam it that it's not a huge problem?

Wyatt Hebert

* I realize that the actual probability will be the summation of the probabilities higher than 3 successes (using that formula), so that yields Sum{x=4->Inf}(0.96^(x-1)*0.04). However, without going through it, it comes close, if not exactly, to the 11.5% chance, so I just left it at that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I might be wrong; my statistics class was quite a while ago, but I think I'm remembering it clearly.

[thejeff]

About the rules:
1) yes
2) yes, normally
3) I believe you can retreat in assassination attempts, you just don't survive?
4) yes.

Point 2 is actually where the problem comes in, I think. There is no commander with VotD, so some special rules are in play. Obviously, despite the lack of a commander, the dead don't dissolve immediately during a VotD. It may be as simple as the check to start dissolving/routing happens when a commander routs or dies. Since there aren't any the check is never made. Adding a check to the 50 turn auto-rout mechanism to start mindless dissolving would be a better fix.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Problem being is that due to my understanding of the way the code is implemented, NO units rout during an assassination. I think that's just a rule implementation. The simplest (meaning, most likely) way to fix it is to remove that, but then you have the problem of any unit routing in an assassination, including assassins themselves.

I guess my point is that #3 implies #2 is never checked, yielding the situation given. Is the issue severe enough that we get a codefix for it (which may be quite complex)? Is it severe enough if the only way we can fix it (or that it will be fixed) is if all units can rout during an assassination?

Resource limitations begin to dominate the thinking at this point. I agree that having them start dissolving would be nice, but the non-rout override in Assassination seems to prevent it. otoh, they have no commander in the first place, so I'm not sure if it applies (or they all may be a commander chassis). I'm assuming they have no commander, otherwise, a few particular kills would start them all dissolving.

Wyatt Hebert

[Jazzepi]

>Problem being is that due to my understanding of the way the >code is implemented, NO units rout during an assassination.

I'm fairly certain this is untrue. Retreating from an assassination attempt just means you die.

Jazzepi

[llamabeast]

Units definitely do rout during assassinations, including the assassin - I've seen it quite often.

And yep, I think your maths is right Wyatt - sorry, I just misunderstood what you'd done the first time.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Hmm, I thought they had fixed that issue completely; hence, I mentioned the removal of the capability. I'll look into verifying that, too, if and when I have spare time.

It's fine. You're right, in general, on the binomial expansion, but afair, the first term would still be 1x^3y^0, or x^3. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I had to do the addition anyways just to be sure I was doing it right. It was the long way around. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Wyatt Hebert

[Fate]

This thread is descending into a question of VotD, which doesn't seem like the point.

The Turn Limit kills the defender of an assassination. I consider this obviously bugged, and it should be fixed. Either the defender lives, or the attacker gets to face the entire army (I mean, how long can you fight a guy in the middle of an army before someone notices?).

If this makes VotD unbalanced, balance it without a bug.

[HoneyBadger]

Make it so that if the undead army fails to kill their target in 75 rounds, then they all dogpile on the one who cast the spell in the first place http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That would make quite a few people a little more wary of casting it on an SC god, I'd say...But, that seems overly complicated, so I just vote 3. I hate to see a unit, even a very tough unit, fight the good fight, only to be betrayed by the game engine, of all things.

Another possible solution, though, would be to strengthen the *quality* of the undead, based on the unit they're attacking's kills, instead of the numbers. So that at 100 kills or so, you get 100 longdead, 250 you get 100 shadows, 500 you get 100 ghosts, 1000 you get 100 banes, all the way up to Tartarians or whatever-keeping in mind that I really didn't research the exact quality of one undead over another, except in the most general of ways, but I think the point's clear enough for comfort.

[Aethyr]

I would be in favor of changing it from a "nightmare" to a "real time" event (SP's bodyguards would then be able to help out).

Then, and I agree with Fate and with a previous post from GP, if the furn limit is reached the conflict is thrown into a "traditional" battle with the rest of the troops (including, but not limited to PD) coming to help out the assaulted party. Not a panacea, but I think this solves a lot of concerns wihtout over correcting.

[Dhaeron]

HoneyBadger said:
Make it so that if the undead army fails to kill their target in 75 rounds, then they all dogpile on the one who cast the spell in the first place http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That would make quite a few people a little more wary of casting it on an SC god, I'd say...


Sorry to say it, but that's a pretty stupid idea. You can just as well remove the spell completely. Or you need to go and completely change the mechanic including the undead that turn up. Face it, nothing worth killing with VOTD will ever die to the undead the spell sends. You don't rack up a few hundred kills and get to be the target of an assassination spell when you can't deal with a bunch of freakind soulless. Even if they're etheral.
I'd vote for just changing the description of the spell to something that states outright that the commander gets killed if he can't win in the nightmare.
If you want a supercombatant that's immune against this spell just get a lifeless one, an undead one, or a demon.

Though i agree that the doubling of the kill count is a problem, i'd think an easy solution is to just remove the kill count increase from undead units. Ok, you'll getpractically no XP for fighting ermor, but hey, bashind skeletons is not really killing, is it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[triqui]

A guy who has killed hundreds of people



Not really. With a guy who has killed 50 of them, it really starts to add up. Cast it 10 times, and you will see the SC adding up deads to his death toll at a very high rate: after the ninth cast of the spell, the SC is attakec by a little more than 25000 ethereal zombies.

Magic resist helps. BUT. It still makes a lvl 4 thaumaturgy spell much better than a lvl 6 thaumaturgy/lvl 6 evocation spell (mind hunt with soul slay), becouse: you cant ward it with astral magic, and it has much lower tier in research.

[triqui]

I got a semi-solution, i posted it in other thread.

What about this?


Actually, killing the avenging soul should be SUBSTRACTED from the future VotD castings. I killed you. Your soul came back seeking revenge. I killed your soul. You are definitely dead, period. You dont have "extra souls" to spare to keep avenging you forever.

[mathusalem]

triqui said:
I got a semi-solution, i posted it in other thread.

What about this?


Actually, killing the avenging soul should be SUBSTRACTED from the future VotD castings. I killed you. Your soul came back seeking revenge. I killed your soul. You are definitely dead, period. You dont have "extra souls" to spare to keep avenging you forever.




but souls are immortals http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[kasnavada]

Should they be allowed to avenge themselves twice ?

I just thought of this as a solution : a 'ritual of forgiveness' which reduces the kill count to 0, but as a side effect gives the unit 0 experience again.

[triqui]

but souls are immortals http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I could even live with that. But with the current rules, it actually means they not only are inmortal, but they reproduce themselves by spores.